Ben & Jerry's SWOT & PESTLE Analysis

Introduction
Company background
Ben & Jerry’s, is an American company that produces ice cream, sorbet, and frozen yogurt and it
was established in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont, USA (Ben & Jerry, 2018). At present, the
company operates its global business activities as a fully owned subsidiary of unalive from 2000.
PESTEL and SWOT analysis
PESTEL analysis
PESTEL analysis is a powerful tool to demonstrate the external situation of a country or market
that allows to understand about the influential factors and stakeholders in an industry’s external
environment. These factors include political, economic, social, technological, legal, and
environmental factors (Rastogi & Trivedi, 2016).
Factors Analysis
Political Political stability is a great strength in the UK, but the Brexit issue has created
political debate and uncertainty, while at the same time lower pound value
and uncertainty with the future trade restriction in the Europe. The current UK
corporate tax rate is 20%. However, the UK government announced that the
tax rate will be 17% from 1st April 2020 (GOV.UK, 2018), that is the good
news for Ben & Jerry’s to enter into UK market.

Economic The UK has gained 5th position in the world economy by nominal GDP with
$2622 trillion in 2017, and GNI per capita with $40530 in 2017 (The World
Bank, 2018). The UK current inflation rate is £2.74%. The minimum wage
was £7.50 per hour, which is increased by £7.83 in 2018 for the people aged
25 and above (Statista, 2018).
Social The UK is the big consumer market with 66 million people (The World Bank,
2018) and the minimum wage in per hour is increased by £7.83 in 2018
(Statista, 2018). The UK people come from different races and religions due
to its multicultural nature, and therefore, companies has opportunities to meet
the needs of variety people. The UK is one of the top 10 countries due to its
educated population and 3rd position for overall best in the world (Office for
national statistic, 2018). However, it indicates that the standard of living and
education are raising in the UK.
Technological The advanced technologically developed infrastructure provides huge
opportunities for the companies to do business in the UK, because UK is one
of the best technologically developed countries. The people of the country are
more likely to adopt new technology and therefore, companies are
continuously innovating new technologies to provide best solution for their
customers. According to Office for national statistic (2018), E-commerce
sales in the UK were £511 billion in 2016 in non-financial sector and £236
billion in website sales and £274 electronic data inter change.
Environmenta
l
The UK people are more likely to purchase environmental friendly products
and services. Economic activities always impact on environment and the UK
government has developed significant policies to reduce the negative impact
on environment such as initiatives to reduce CO2. CO2 emission in the uk
was 7.146 metric ton per capita in 2013, which is decreased by 6.497 in 2014
(The World Bank, 2018).
Legal The companies must have to comply with the UK legal act to do business in
the UK. These include data protection act, consumer protection act,

competition policy, equality act, employment act and so on.
SWOT analysis
Strength
 High brand loyalty among US
consumer.
 Large market share in USA market
due to its premium ice creams
category.
 Quality of ice creams made from
natural ingredients.
 Environmental friendly packaging
system
 Progressive thinking about the present
and future market with the vision of
making fantastic ice creams
 Flexible business culture with best
training and industry standard pay
packages for the employees
 Strong marketing and advertising team
Weakness
High costly product due to its high quality
that influences consumers to switch the
similar brand.
High focus on social responsibility activities
may increase cost and reduce focus on core
business
Opportunities
 Focus on sugar free ice cream
 Minimum wage rate increased by
£7.83 per hour in 2018 from £7.50 in
2017 in the UK people (Statista,
2018).
 Inflation rate decreased by £2.74% in
2018 in the UK (Statista, 2018).
 Annual industry growth 1.4% with
438.8m revenue in the UK market
 Corporate tax rate will be decreased
17% from 1st April 2020 (GOV.UK,
2018).
 Technologically advanced
infrastructure
Threats
UK people are more health conscious and like
low fat ice cream
High competitive market
Internal and External marketing communication Issues

Internal issues
IMC as a tactical and strategic process
Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) develops communication channel both tactical
levels (Villarreal, 2010), that is responsible for a particular promotional activity, and strategic
level (Kitchen and Burgmann, 2015) that is responsible for multiple promotional activities within
an organization. Ben & Jerry’s needs to build IMC with tactical level employees who are
responsible for a specific promotional tool, and strategic level employees who are monitoring
entire promotional campaign.
Message clarity and consistency
Kitchen and Burgmann (2010) argue that message clarity and consistency means every
communication message should have included a common and clear brand meaning to its
receiver, while at the same time, it provides essential information about the specific brand or
products and services. Ben & Jerry’s should send the message to its customers and stakeholders
that brings a common and clear brand meaning with the right brand knowledge structure and
provides available information about the products or services such as price, color, test and so on.
External issues
Communication centered on new technologies and database management
The advancement of modern technology has made the communication process easier and
understandable, that allows an organization to develop communication strategies in relation to
customer requirements with the help of customer database information (Belch et al., 2014)), and
therefore, Ben & Jerry’s needs to develop its communication strategy by analyzing customer
information, that’s why it also requires to build customer database management.
Customer – centric communication
IMC always focuses on “outside-in” approach that helps to understand customer’s needs and
want, rather than the traditional approach “inside-out”. Finne and Gronrpps (2017) claim that
company should develop segment basis communication strategy that is more customer centric,
rather that overall communication strategy. For example; Ben & Jerry’s can adopt a segment by

segment communication strategy, such as adult segment, young segment, and kids segment,
because the one segment message receiving power is totally different from other segments.
SMART marketing communications objectives
Four marketing communication objectives
STP- Segmentation, Targeting and positioning strategy
Segmentation
The ice cream produce company, Ben and Jerry segments its UK market base on the four
categories such as demographic, geographic, behavioral, and psychographic segmentation
(Hughson et al., 2017). Ben & Jerry segment their UK market as per the age between 25 and
44 people, who are non-class people and who have more disposable income. For example; the
people who like to feel comfortable and relax to eat ice cream in front of the TV and other
informal situation. Ben & Jerry segment the UK market for male, female and kids. As per the
occupation who are students, professional and specialist. Geographically the company
segments their market unban and density areas. For behavioral segment, the company
segments based on consumer behavior and purchase intention. For Psychographic, Ben & jerry
considers the consumer lifestyle and social class.
Targeting
The target people of Ben & Jerry’s for the UK market age between 25 to 44 and kids. Both
male and female customer, specially focus on kids, young and adults who love ice cream and
lived in urban and density region. The company targets all social class, especially middle and
upper class and non-class who like to feel informal lifestyle.
Positioning
Ben & Jerry offers high quality and high price ice cream product, including, Ice-cream
catering, Greek FROYO, sorbet, mini-pints, cakes, and pints of premium. The company
categories its products into low fat, standard, premium, and non-dairy.

Key ethical consideration
New integrated communication approach
Marketing communication strategy
Kotler et al., (2012) illustrate that company require three variables including, what to say, how to
say it, and who should say it, to achieve its’ target customers by formulating a specific marketing
communication strategy, and therefore, Ben & Jerry needs to develop its’ massage strategy and
creative strategy.
Message strategy
For developing message strategy, Ben & Jerry’s marketing communication team needs to find
out unique ideas or themes that will link with the brand positioning and allow to points of
differences from its competitors (Kotler et al., 2012). For example; Ben & Jerry has some unique
themes for the message strategy, including, “I scream, you scream, we all scream, for ice
cream”, and “eat away your feelings” (Ben & Jerry, 2018) that will be used in the UK market
and this message content will allow the company to achieve the brand position in customer mind
specially young and fashionable target group.
Creative strategy
Unique selling points and campaign strategy allow to increase company’s sales volume. In early
period in the UK market, this idea will be focused on only awareness and educational aspects,
but after a few months it will focus on growing excitement and underline certain benefits
(Luxton et al., 2015). Marketing campaigns with the UK top actors allows Ben & Jerry’s to crate
different executions to the target group especially young customers.
Integrated promotional mix
Promotion – Brand Ambassador

Newspaper
Hapca et al., (2014) depict that placement is the significant issue for giving ads in a newspaper.
For example, the ads that put in heading page has gained more customer attention than that puts
in the other pages. Picard (2008) argues that companies should give their ads in those
newspapers that have a good reputation of the people. Keeping in view this observation, Ben &
Jerry’s chooses the lifestyle and economic newspapers, because the UK people are more likely to
read life style and economic newspapers. According to Leonidou & Leonidou (2009), the
newspaper is one of the best ways to give ads for consumer goods like ice cream, because it
creates more interest, and attention as well as provokes immediate action in customer’s mind.
Newspaper advertisement creates several direct response such as creating desire by offering
benefits, to the needs and emotions (Hapca et al., 2014), capturing attention through size, design,
time and place (Picard, 2008), and growing interest by touching human emotion (Leonidou &
Leonidou, 2009).
Television
According to Bellman et al., (2017), the advertisement that is small but run repeatedly, has
gained more customer attention than that is large in duration and television is the best media to
run such types of ads repeatedly. Ben & Jerry’s always try to increase awareness among their
customer through TV advertising about their existence, and new items. Draganska et al., (2014)
claim that TV campaign is the most influential way to gain customer attention, because the
message from TV advertising is more remarkable and easy remembered. For UK market Ben &
Jerry’s can give their advertising through UK most popular TV channels such as, Sky UK, AMC
Networks, Channel 4, UKTV, ITV Network and so on.
Magazines
In the competitive business world, the print magazines and digital magazines gain more
popularity. Rauwers et al., (2016) claim that companies are more likely to give their advertising
through popular magazines due to its low cost than the other media like TV and Newspapers.
Manrai (2018) argues that UK people read more digital magazines rather than print magazines
due to availability of smart phone and other modern devices. So, it is a better decision for Ben &

Jerry’s to choose digital magazines rather than print magazines in the UK market in terms of
advertising through magazines.
Internet
UK is the most technological advanced country across the world and London is the hub of
technological and financial institution. Due to availability and advancement of technology, UK
people are more likely to spend their time in online plate from. Scott (2015) claim that in 21st
century internet basis platform is the popular media for ads placement, and therefore, pinterest,
Whatapps, Instragram, facebook, and Myspace are the popular website for placing internet ads.
In terms of internet basis promotion, Ben & Jerry’s should choose Pinterest, Whatpps,
Instragram, Facebook, Myspace, Fashion blogs, and other popular website for placing their ads
in the UK market.
Timescale and Resources
Howard (2015) depict that every company should start their marketing communication and all
promotional activities before entering into new market or launching new products or services in
order to capturing all potential achievement, and therefore, all department require to participate
regular meeting for developing and implementing integrated strategy. For entering into the UK
market, Ben & Jerry’s should start their promotional activities as per the following timescale.
Tactical calendar for Communication mediums
Medium Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Brand
ambassador
Newspaper
Television
Magazines
Internet

Budget
Ben & Jerry will require to allocate 50% of their budget to spend on promotion due to the
preference of the target customers through events and campaign. The next 25% will be spent for
TV advertising. The other 10% will be used for print media such as newspaper and magazines
and rest of 15% will be spent in internet marketing.
Budget allocation
Medium Percentage
Brand ambassador 50%
Television 25%
Newspaper and Magazines 10%
Internet 15%
Total 100%
Evaluation and control (Recommendation)
Luxton et al., (2015) claim that the organizational marketing communication team is responsible
for monitoring, how the allocated marketing communications budget is implemented. In order to
properly evaluate the team requires to evaluate the organizational performance and activities of
various communications departments. Keeping in view this observation, Ben & Jerry’s
marketing communication team need to evaluate the promotional and other communication
related activities and they have to ensure that every amount of allocating money is successfully
implemented for achieving the targeting communication goals.

Considering the large customer group the company allocated its resources for the 12 months
from 1st January 2019. The half of the budgeted amount (50%) will be spent for campaign and
events activities followed by 25% will be used for television advertising, 10% of print media,
and the rest of the 15% will be spent on internet marketing. This way for the launching period
will create more chances of integrating and successes for the Ben & Jerry’s.